Rafael Yglesias - Only Children

All that was gone now. Gone forever. Her stomach had a tangled bulge in it, like a duffel bag sloppily stuffed with a few dirty towels, and the definition between her buttocks and her thighs had evaporated, the sausage skin made mushy by nature’s fierce boiling, the meat inside now a loose jelly, unevenly distributed, imminently threatening to ooze out.

“My baby.” Her mother’s voice surrounded her, and her head was embraced, hidden from the world. Lily’s perfume was infiltrated by other odors — decay, disinfectant — and her own skin felt clammy against her mother’s roughened, hard cheeks.

“I’ll be all right. I’m sorry,” Diane blubbered in the auditorium of Lily’s arms, still sobbing.

She pushed her head out of her mother’s clutches and saw Peter again. Peter looked much younger than she felt. She seemed to be a middle-aged woman and he a teenager.

It had been a terrible mistake. She liked schedules. They made sense of life, pushed you ahead to make decisions that otherwise would be stuck in place by the ultimate quagmire — the meaninglessness of everything. It had come time to have a child. And so she had done it, Peter’s reluctance notwithstanding. She’d left the diaphragm in its case, smearing some jelly on her fingers and vaguely on her vaginal lips to maintain olfactory consistency. These precautions were almost insufficient; after the great sex (she had really released into the pleasure, her head filled with images of the possible creation below) Peter suspiciously wondered why he hadn’t bumped against the diaphragm during her orgasm, like always. He had never before mentioned that that happened, just one of many intimacies that she believed he neglected to share. She shrugged her shoulders and he didn’t press the point. For two months she deceived him, and just as she regretted it and stopped, she felt the first soreness and subtle firming in her breasts.

Peter had asked her to consider an abortion — yet another chance to avoid this disaster. They had terrible fights every night for a week, and then he had made his grand speech: “If you insist, then we’ll do it. But I’m not responsible for the care. Don’t expect me to sacrifice my work, or my social life. If you think I’m going to be a ‘new’ father, you’re wrong.” Diane had listened dutifully, with a sneer on her lips to show him she knew he didn’t really mean it.

She looked at him now, quavering in her watery vision as her unstoppable sobs shook her: Peter was young, embarrassed, and pitying. It was a terrible mistake, she thought. I’ve destroyed my body and my marriage. And sooner or later I will destroy my baby.

NINA LAY on the beach, naked, the water rising higher on her belly with each wave, the bright sun glowing through her eyelids, insisting on her consciousness. …

“It’s starting,” Eric said. What was he doing here? He was supposed to be back at the summer house, making calls.

The water was lapping at her mouth, insinuating at the corners, draining down into her throat. Move up, she told herself. But her body was paralyzed. And it was raging now, the gentle surf churning up her legs. She had to move. Soon the water would overwhelm her completely and she’d die.

“Nina! Nina! Do your breathing!”

But I’ll drown and die if I open my mouth.

From the endless expanse loomed a huge iron hook, driving straight at her baby-full belly, sure to tear her apart — and she was awake, back in the tiny birthing room, machines beeping, Dr. Ephron’s cold black eyes staring at her. “Breathe, Nina!”

Her back broke apart. She felt it for sure this time, the whole of her spine popping out, all of her draining to the floor. She grabbed at the nearest hand to hold on, to keep at least her head as part of this world. Eric took it and she saw his face, although knowing it was him had nothing to do with the way he appeared. He seemed to be a completely different person. A little boy she’d known in school, or passed in the streets.

“I can’t stand it, I can’t, I can’t—”

“Stay with it, Nina,” Ephron said. “This is the worst it will be.”

“I need more stuff for the pain!”

“I don’t want a sleepy baby! Breathe! Breathe!” Ephron grabbed her cheeks and forced Nina to look her in the eyes. She did the breathing for Nina to imitate and Nina found herself panting along stupidly.

She was merely a head now, floating in space, carried about by Ephron and Eric. They’d lost the bottom of her forever. “I can’t do this anymore. We’ll go home and come back later,” she pleaded.

“Okay,” Ephron said approvingly. “Rest now.”

“It is over?” Nina asked, and she was back on the beach, baking in the sun. Her lips were so dry. But something cool slid over them. Sleeping was so beautiful, so simple, so gentle and warm. She was too close to the shore. The tide was rising again, lapping up over her belly, splashing on her mouth. Move up, move up, get away from it.

“Nina!” Eric the little boy shouted. “Don’t push!”

“Breathe, Nina! Breathe, Nina!” Ephron’s hand passed over her eyes, rubbing her forehead. “Breathe with me!”

She huffed and huffed and huffed and huffed, thinking each moment was the last she could sustain life.

Ephron said, “I’m going to take a look, Nina.”

“No!” Nina tried to gain control of her body. Why couldn’t she get up and run? Why was she helpless? “No! No!” she begged. That bastard Eric was holding her down. Was he? Was he hugging her?

“Oh, my God!” The doctor had pushed her insides like pressing a balloon. She was going to explode, pieces of her would be everywhere. …

“Okay,” Ephron said. “I’m sorry.” She came in close, her face huge. “We’re going to push now. I want you to push out, push from your rectum, like you’re having the biggest bowel movement of your life. Don’t push from here”—she made a gesture—“push from your rectum.” She turned to Eric and spoke.

The sky was black. Ice cream fell in the sand, breading it for broiling. She was inflated — grown big, big enough to fill a building, blot out a sun.

“It’s starting!”

Eric poked at her, his arms fussing with her. What was he doing? Was she beginning to float?

The beeping, the room, Ephron slapped into her consciousness. “Breathe in, breathe out,” Ephron said, and the horrible surge of heat and force mushroomed inside. “Push!”

She clenched herself. I am iron, I am iron, she thought.

“Push, Nina! Push, Nina!”

I am God come to create! I am steel!

“Push, Nina! Push, Nina!”

PETER STOPPED again at the nursery window before leaving the hospital. He couldn’t pick out Byron immediately; that distressed him, although he knew it wasn’t a fair test. Outside of visiting hours, the infants were almost totally covered in their Lucite bins (flattened really, by their fiercely tucked-in blankets), faces down, leaving only hair, ears, and a glimpse of nose to distinguish one from another. Byron’s head, bald but for a fine down, was similar to four others, and Peter could remember nothing unusual about his ears to look for.

Peter squinted at the goofy blue- or pink-bordered labels, trying to pick out the B of Byron and the H of Hummel; the initials were all he could hope to spot through glass smudged by the anxious vanities of a dozen set of grandparents. He found Byron at last: at the far end, against a wall, next to a vacant incubator. Byron was still, the little form of his body visible against the taut cotton blanket. His big, slightly protruding eyes were shut; the lids had the lifeless dignity of cool marble.

Peter stared at Byron, transfixed. His son was unmoving, except for an occasional worried pursing of his lips. Peter thought nothing. He felt a proud sadness, pleasure in Byron’s existence, but dismay at the expanse of his uncertain future. After many minutes, Peter found himself thinking it was hard on Byron to be in that big, bright room with all those other babies. One of them was screaming its head off, and although that didn’t seem to awaken the others, Peter couldn’t help imposing his adult sense of how frightened Byron must feel: to be thrust into the world and find it a place flooded with fluorescent light, crying creatures, and giant black women in stiff, rustling garb who, from time to time, would toss one about, removing things, wiping things, adding things. And soon someone would come and slice off part of his penis, probably while chatting about the stock market or the traffic on the FDR Drive.